Amel a's 2,016 Beacons Kept Bright On the choppy waters of Norfolk's bay and the swells of San Frnacisco's harbour, giant rubber "doughnuts" carrying red, green and yellow lights are bobbing night and day. To seaplane pilots, they don't seem to bob. They look as stationary as the runway flares that bring a landplane safely down in darkness, That is why these new sea lights—first ever to achieve such an illusion—are important. Already accepted by the United States Navy and soon to be passed upon by the Civil Aeronautics Authority, the lights will make night flying safer by outlining runways. They will enable navy and Coast Guard seaplanes to drop more surely into strange waters and giant transatlantic planes to land at night—a practice now forbidden by the government except in emergencies, With every one of the new sea lamps lighted in the country's harbours this year, another chore will be added to those of the lighthouse keepers of the skies, the men who keep 2,016 lights burning along 24,249 miles of Federal airways. Their beacons, shining every fifteen miles, blaze pathways that criss-ere the continent from New York to San Francisco; Char-lesson, S. C., to Tucson, Ariz.; Dallas, Texas, to Seattle, Wash.; Billings, Mont., to El Paso, Texas, and along scores of other shorter routes, Because the big lights turn themselves on ten minutes before sunset and off ten minutes after sunrise and flick a new bulb into place less than 30 seconds after one burns out, only 200 men are needed to tend them. Twelve of these keepers live at their lighthouses on emergency landing fields, on mountain tops or in desert out-posts so isolated they may not see another man for months at a time. Others—farm boys eager to pick up a little extra money and men who run the radio or teletype stations of the nation's network of airways communications—keep an eye on the beacons, make minor repairs, and call for help when they can't fix the lights, The roving lighthouse keepers answer their call, Expert Electricians Tend Large Number These mechanicians, whose only job is to keep the airways beacons bright at night, are all civil service employees of the Civil Aeronautics Authority, They are expert electricians, husky as backwoodsman, from 25 to 55 years old, and in most cases married, Each of them watches over a string of from nine to 36 lights, depending on the wildness of the terrain Most days a nomad keeper gets up at 6 o'clock, eats breakfast and then phones the nearest radio communications station of the airways to see if any one has reported a light out. If so, he visits that beacon first. But no matter what his route, he always packs a lunch, usually soup, ham and cheese sandwiches and coffee, and emergency rations of canned corned beef and soups and a gallon thermos jug of water, Then (unless he's crossing the Rockies, where he rides a burro) he backs his truck out of the garage he uses as a workshop and heads for ihe beacon. Sometimes he has to circle 80 miles around a mountain to go fifteen miles in straight line. Once he gets there, he gives the light either its quarterly major overhaul or its monthly check-up, and it he finishes before lunch, drives on to the next light, Usually he tends from one to three of them in a day. Before he signs off, he phones the radio communications station again to make sure all the lights on his beat are shining. If not he drives through the night to light the dark beacon even if it's 200 miles away, at the other end of his line. Other. wise, he puts up for the night in the nearest town, He won't get back to home-base, the centre of his route, until the week-end. sequently be most unwise to regard the future in any light apart from that of the inevitability of Italy's entrance, for the only question which up to the present has not been answered, is as to when it will take place. That answer may be given within a very short time.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.